The Sunshine Does Not Love You
by Malady7
Summary: Spike returns to Sunnydale, utterly defeated after years of searching for a soul, only to find the town in ruins. There are no signs of life – only a girl who may be Spike’s last hope for redemption. postSeeing Red AU
1. Prologue

**Title: **the sunshine does not love you

**Genre:** Romance/Angst/some Humor… an emotional roller coaster!

**Pairings: **Spike/Buffy

**Warnings: **AU

**Disclaimer: **Two words: "I" and "wish". All credit goes to Our Lord Whedon and the Temptations for the song.

**Summary: **Spike returns to Sunnydale utterly defeated after years of searching for a soul, only to find the town in ruins. There are no signs of life – only a girl who may be Spike's last hope for redemption. post-Seeing Red AU

**Author's Note: **This is sort of the most ambitious fanfiction project I've ever taken on. It'll have chapters! And quotations from literature! But be not daunted – although you can't really tell from this cheery little prologue, there will be some light moments. Also, some really not light moments. Anyway, go forth and be entertained!

PS: The song was because, I don't know, it seems like the kind of song Spike would sing while wallowing in his pit of self-deprecation.

"_There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, **the darker the tinge that saddens it**."_

-Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter"

Flaming spears of orange pierce the darkening sky, the very sunset reflecting the violence it looks down upon. There is little in the way of noise. Somehow, this makes the scene even more ominous. No police siren promises salvation, no gunshots hint resistance. Sunnydale has succumbed, finally, to the Hell that devours from beneath.

A street, lined with houses that suggested decaying charm. Sturdy, suburban trees, once filled with leaves and treehouses, now scorched and diseased, their twisted limbs and oozing trunks mirroring the illness that plagued the city. Most houses are plundered and rotting, but retain a semblance of normality. Only one is smashed entirely to rubble, a single supporting wall remaining improbably balanced upright.

Suddenly, an intermittent humming noise breaks the silence. Someone standing by the destroyed house could make out, if they squinted, a figure walking up the hill at the bottom of the street. He is humming tunelessly, seemingly lost in thought. He is the only thing that moves on the street.

His meaningless humming seamlessly transitions into words, his low baritone portraying no joy or even recognition that the song is coming from inside of him.

"_Why do you build me up," _he murmurs unconsciously "_Buttercup, baby, just to let me down?"_

He pauses at the apex of the hill. Frowning, he looks to the left and right, as though trying to remember something, or maybe just a half-instinctual inspection for trouble. With a shrug, he starts on again, hands deep in his pockets, the words devolving back into hums.

A warm, Southern Californian breeze (perhaps the only thing unchanged) tousles his messy, white-blonde hair as he stops humming to say three, nearly inaudible words.

"Home… sweet home,"


	2. The Recognition

"_Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss,"_

Hawthorne, "_The Scarlet Letter"_

Spike stopped at the top of the hill, so deep in thought he didn't realize he had stopped walking. His omni-present black cloak hid his substantially leaner frame. The last three years had not been good to the vampire. His already prominent cheekbones seemed even more so in his sunken cheeks, and his lips were cracked and pale from lack of sustenance. His normally coiffed white hair was mussed, and dark roots could be seen near his scalp.

Three years. Three years it had been since he had left good ole Sunny D with a very specific goal in his mind. There was a rumor – a demon in the Horn who had been known to grant wishes for a price – and Spike had been determined to find him and get what he wanted. What _she _deserved.

But, nothing. If there ever _had _been such a demon, he was gone by the time Spike came looking. The eerie tales that haunted the African villagers surrounding the fabled caves were probably nothing but mythology.

Next, a lead in Prague had led him to another dead end. As did Paris, Ulaanbaatar, Canberra. Searching for his soul for one thousand ninety-seven days in as many cities had slowly peeled his hope away, like a Gnarl demon stripping the skin from its latest victim.

Spike grimaced. Only a soulless killer could come up with a simile like that.

And so he was destined to remain, it seemed, until he could come up with a way of seriously pissing off a gypsy tribe without resorting to violence. Not that Spike was against a little wholesome violence here and there, but unfortunately that pesky little gizmo nestled in his grey matter prevented his doing anything rash. Plus, Angel's soul went crackers whenever he found time to fit in a quick shag.

There were some things Spike wasn't sure he could sacrifice.

He had promised himself he wouldn't come back. He hadn't planned on it. He had planned to stay as far away from Buffy and the gang as possible. Unsouled Spike had a tendency to hurt the people who let him come too close, and he couldn't let himself do that. Not again. Not to her.

Sometimes, Spike felt like there was a war going on inside him. Two little Mexican midget wrestlers with cool masks constantly going at it somewhere in the vicinity of his solar plexus. Dirty little bastards too, with absolutely no regard for the venerable code of midget wrestling honor. One kicked while he was down, one threw down with the folding chair when his back was turned.

Some delicate internal balance had been upset that night, 3 years ago, when Spike almost did something unspeakable. Hence with the leaving.

But leaving aside all bizarre metaphors (he had always had a knack for those, springing from, he supposed, a combination of too much daytime TV and his instinctive ear for awful poetry), Spike had promised himself to stay as far away from Buffy as possible. He couldn't trust himself now that he could hurt her.

He had heard things. Demons talking about Sunnydale as if it was Woodstock for the undead. The Slayer was said to be losing her grip. Some claimed she had retired, others said she was already dead. A few boasted to have killed her themselves. Spike stopped believing that one about the fourth time he heard it from as many demons, but the major emigration of undesirables to Southern California was telling.

He didn't have to stay. Quick reconnaissance job, just scoping things out from a distance. Hell, Buffy & Co. probably weren't even there anymore. In any case, there would be no talking, just a sightseeing tour to check in on everything. See if there was any substance backing the rumors.

From the looks of it, the Slayer had lost a lot more than her grip.

Spike had, at one time, been something of a connoisseur of chaos, and he could certainly appreciate the scene around him. And yet… something was missing. Instead of delighting him, the crumbled town merely made him feel empty.

Disorder really was no fun without people to run about screaming in it.

Still musing, Spike continued to travel along the road. Suddenly, one of his mysterious vampiric senses alerted him to a warm body somewhere over his left shoulder. Whipping around, he saw something that astonished him.

A little tyke in a dirty denim dress squatted at the edge of the rubble, staring intently at something invisible on the ground. She was motionless, seemingly oblivious to the veritable Apocalypse surrounding her. A thunderous explosion from the gas station a few blocks off made the ground shake, and Spike gripped a streetlamp instinctively. The child was unfazed. She slowly withdrew one hand from her lap, revealing a twig clutched in her hand, and prodded the ground gently. _Poor mite, _Spike thought, _abandoned by her family, just waiting to be picked off by a peckish scavenger demon._ He paused for an instant, respectfully silent.

Then, shrugging, he turned to go on his way. Circle of life, and all that. But some motion of his shoulders alerted the child to his presence, and she whipped around, nearly knocking herself to her seat. The wind ruffled her fluffy brown hair as it escaped from the pink hair clip no doubt lovingly placed by her mother eons ago. Her eyes widened, and Spike's superior night vision picked out details on her face that would have been impossible for any mortal to see in the dusky twilight.

A muddy smudge swiped her cheek carelessly, and her eyelids were dirty too, as if she had rubbed them with grimy hands. A nasty scratch marred her forehead, with dried blood tracks trickling down from the wound. No one had bothered to wipe them away. Hazel-green eyes widened at the sight of the vampire skulking at the end of the street.

She jumped up lightly, and, with an eldritch, piercing laugh, leapt away over the cracked remains of her life, disappearing like a waft of incense.

Spike remained still, staring at the spot where the child had squatted seconds ago, not attempting to run after her. There was no reason not to go on except… some uncomfortable pang in his gut, an itchy, uncertain feeling on his skin. There was something he wasn't noticing…

A distant alarm wailed, then halted abruptly. This seemed to bring Spike swirling back to reality, and with a start he realized where his wandering legs had carried him.

_I know this rubble._

Hadn't he skulked by that oak tree six billion times before? Ducked his head low when she looked out the window, leaving a small pile of cigarettes consumed throughout his all night vigils?

Hadn't he run up that driveway a dozen times covered with a heavy felt blanket and smoldering faintly? Hadn't he walked her up to the sidewalk a million times after patrolling, waited awkwardly on the threshold?

Memories stormed Spike's bridled brain like Vikings raiding a village. Above the general mish-mash of painful recollections, Buffy's face swam into clear focus – clearer than he'd seen her in a while, except for in sleep. Every detail was recalled with biting clarity –

Suddenly, he felt an almost-physical blow to his stomach. The girl, that lost little waif. Her eyes. No one in the world had eyes that color except –

Thoughts seemed to come slowly and disjointedly, as though crawling through tar. She couldn't have – but it _had_ been 3 years – Bloody hell, a _baby_! No, he corrected himself; it was no longer a baby. Spike wasn't accustomed to guessing children's ages, but he would say this lass had been in the world two, maybe three years.

Jumping to conclusions was a habit Spike had long attempted to break himself of, but when a bloke was sinking in red-hot lava of uncertainty, it was hard not to grasp any handy conclusions that floated by.

Buffy had a child. That much was clear from her startlingly green eyes, eyes that could only have come from the Slayer. And it explained why she had been lying low lately – it wasn't good to draw attention to yourself when you had an itty-bitty liability on your hands.

Conclusions, conclusions.

Every child must have a father. For every X, there must be a Y. Although temporally it made sense – _wasn't it 3 years ago almost to the date when we last_ – Spike knew it wasn't his. He had traded functional internal plumbing in for a blood lust and super cool fangs over 120 years ago. Thankfully, this eliminated one other possibility that immediately presented its broody self. Some human bloke, then.

Frankly, as long as it wasn't Riley, the incredible tin soldier-boy, Spike could rest in peace. Well, figuratively.

But far more important than the identity of the father was, in Spike's mind, the condition of the mother. One big ugly question kept knocking impatiently on the inside of his brain, determined to attract his attention, knowing that the answer would kill him.

_Why would Buffy abandon her daughter?_

Answer: she wouldn't. Not if she had a choice. Not if she had an ounce of breath left inside her.

Conclusion:

Well.

Spike gulped.

He had the odd impression of a sort of grey fog darkening his vision from all sides.

_No,_ he thought angrily_, can't go off my head now, I've got to _–

After a moment's thought, his face hardened unnaturally, as though he had roughly gathered up an explosive emotion and stuffed it in a mental closet. If a vampire could go pale, Spike would have.

_I've got to go see a girl_.

**A/N: **Yes, I believe that last one was a quote from… er… the fourth season. Thanks to Claire for beta-ing and pointing that out!

Damn, Spike is fun to write! I can only hope he is half as fun to read. Anyway, hold on to your pantyhose, because the next chapter has a fight! And a lemon zester, but that's beside the point… cackles


	3. The ElfChild and the Vampire

_This child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame hath come from the hand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart... It was meant for a blessing; for the one blessing of her life!_

_ - Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter_

Three-year-old girls are not very effective at evading strapping vampires. Spike knew this, both from common sense and from an interesting prior experience. And yet –

"Where the hell did you run off to?" Spike muttered, opening an overturned refrigerator and peering inside.

He threw his whole mind into his search, keeping his body busy. It was nothing but a sticking plaster over a hole in a bursting dam, but he was holding together. And that was important.

Spike caught a whiff of something promising that led him to where the garden had been. Someone had built a Wendy house, and it had remarkably escaped destruction.

He cautiously approached the structure. What could he possibly say to her to make her trust him? He stopped. Should she trust him?

Consideration of this dilemma was taken out of Spike's hands by a blur of motion that streaked out from behind the dollhouse and attempted to run right under him. He reached down and caught her easily.

With a lion-like roar of outrage, the little girl became a tornado of hurt, scrabbling desperately to be released. Spike had the bracing experience of being simultaneously kicked in the shin and viciously bitten on the hand. He swore as he attempted to hold the girl still with one hand while clutching his bruised shin with the other, then felt strangely guilty.

Finding herself in an inescapable situation, the child did what she had been programmed to do since birth. Filling her lungs with air, she let out a penetrating, lengthy scream that echoed throughout the silent city,

Spike winced. Holding a screaming toddler in Sunnydale was akin to sitting on a wounded zebra in a piranha-infested river.

"Shut up!" he whispered anxiously to the child, holding her out at arms length away from her kicking feet. "I'm the good guy, right? Stop – wiggling!"

One of her sandals flew off and gave him a surprisingly good wallop in the face. Spike quickly bit off another curse. The girl's shrieks transformed into shrieks of laughter as Spike felt his cheek start to swell.

"Now look," he said somewhat relieved but attempting to sound stern.

As her wild laughter subsided into giggles, she stopped squirming and kicking. Spike sighed in relief and placed her back on the floor.

"There. That's better," he said, stooping to pick up the projectile shoe. "Now – "

Spike looked up into the eyes of a grimacing Fyarl demon. There was no time to duck.

"Oh. Bloody-"

With a sensation often depicted in comic books as "KAPOW!" Spike found his face centimeters away from the ground. He was pretty sure that it had been several feet up just a moment ago.

He simultaneously became aware of the fact that, judging by the pain, his head was broken neatly in half, and of an undeniable pull coming from the direction of his coat lapels. Spike looked around desperately for a weapon as the creature whirled him up and around for an encore. He spotted something metallic in the rubble, and scooped it up just in time.

The demon wound up, but Spike was ready. Grasping his Excalibur by its no-slip grip hilt, he vowed to fill the silver-weak demon with so many holes, he'd be using it to strain orange juice.

But, showing unusual ingenuity for his species, the Fyarl changed tactic and went for the stomach. Spike caught a good wallop that certainly rearranged some of his vital organs and sat down heavily with an "Oof!"

The demon lost interest in the recumbent vampire, and turned its attention to the Human d'Jour, who had been watching the proceedings with some interest. Sensing her new involvement in the fracas, she began to scramble away backwards, tripping over loose fragments of the Summers' residence. The demon drew close.

With something like panic rocketing around in Spike's head, he hurled his weapon of choice (which, upon further reflection, appeared to be a lemon zester) at the ravenous beast. It struck him on the shoulder, the tiny prongs digging into his mossy flesh like desperate fleas.

Successfully distracted, the demon slowly lumbered around, yanking the zester out of it's shoulder with such vigor Spike nearly cringed. It stamped the ground and snorted. Spike needed a plan.

Oi! Princess!" he shouted, diving behind the overturned refrigerator to evade an enthusiastic headbutting. "Get out the way!"

Spike was preoccupied with the brawl for the next few seconds, but when he next peeped over at her, she appeared to be diligently building some kind of fortification out of broken concrete and wood. _Well, at least she's enjoying herself, _Spike thought gloomily as he once again found himself strangely aerodynamic and moving with ominous speed towards the standing wall.

As Spike tried to coax his legs into standing up, he caught a glimpse of something glistening by his foot, half buried in ash. Not wanting to repeat the lemon zester incident, he brushed the dirt off and scooped it up to glean a closer look. Instantly he dropped it again, hissing through his teeth as the crucifix stung his fingers. The _silver_ crucifix.

Spike grimaced. Another idea was coming to light, one that would be as successful as it was revolting. Well, a bloke's gotta do.

He quickly ripped a strip of fabric from his t-shirt and wrapped it around his hand, enabling him to pick up the necklace. As the demon reared up for another head-on attack, Spike stood straight up, making no attempt to dodge.

The demon bellowed like an angry wildebeest, giving Spike the opportunity he was looking for. Closing his eyes, he shoved his arm deep into the beast's open maw, releasing the cross and quickly pulling out before he became an amputee.

Fortunately, Fyarl demons are programmed to eat whatever gets put into their mouths, and it only looked surprised for a minute before gulping instinctively.

It bellowed again, and darted forward, only to stop a moment later and cough. The cough became more pronounced, then it was clutching its throat, falling to the ground and making a hideous gargling noise.

Not really caring to see the stages of Fyarl implosion due to silver ingestion, Spike turned his attention to the girl hidden deeply in her battlements, peeping with unrestrained interest at the frothing demon.

Spike remembered Buffy saying something about being traumatized at this age by the death of a cartoon deer. He really hoped her daughter was made of stronger stuff.

As he approached her makeshift lean-to, she stiffened visibly inside.

He halted.

"You c'n come out now," he said.

She shook her head vehemently. Obviously wasn't too fond of that notion.

Spike stuffed his hands in his pockets, rooting around for inspiration. His fingers grazed his Zippo lighter, the edges of a folded-up photograph, and seized on a piece of toffee wrapped up in wax paper.

"I've got a sweetie." he provided, waving the candy in an alluring manner.

She hesitated for about a millisecond before emerging from her makeshift structure, behind first, and darting up to Spike. She snatched the ancient toffee, and, retreating to a safe distance, unwrapped her conquest. The whole procedure took about 2 seconds.

"Look," he began, all too aware of the fact that they were still wide open for attack. "There isn't much time. I know you don't know me, but I knew – I _know_ your mother, and you've got to trust me because there could be more –"

"More candy." she finished eagerly, making grabbing motions with her hands.

"_No_." Spike said deliberately. She looked crushed. He reconsidered.

"Alright, candy later, but now we've got to – "

"I," she announced, pausing dramatically, "I'm hungry. Let's leave."

"Yes, let's." Spike said, relieved.

Throughout the exchange, she had been moving imperceptibly nearer and nearer to the vampire. Now, standing close by his side, she slipped her hand into his and looked up at him.

Spike stared blankly at his hand. Hers was lost in his. Why were children so small?

"What's your name?"

He was jolted from the white space by her question. Her voice was quiet but intense, each word picked out precisely and articulately.

"Er, Spike," he replied. "What's yours?" The question was automatic, but he found himself curious and slightly worried. It couldn't be worse than "Buffy", could it?

However, she chose to ignore him.

"You kicked his ass," she commented, indicating the prostrate Fyarl demon.

One eyebrow lifted faintly.

"Yes, but I'm not sure your mum would like your putting it that way."

"But she says it all the time!" the child protested. "She kicks lots of asses. Monsters, bad guys, the IRS man…"

She trailed off with a "you-get-the-picture" nod. He did.

She tugged on his hand, skipping in place.

"Let's go!" she cried, "Let's go home!"

Home?

Oh, right. _Home_.

He once again looked at the tiny hand placed so thoughtlessly in his own. She trusted him completely. And he still wasn't sure she should. Would she have gone home with the first sleazebag to offer her a sweet?

"Shouldn't talk to strangers," he muttered, barely aware he was speaking aloud.

She cocked her head and peered at him curiously.

"You're not a stranger," she said, laughing.

_What more do you want?_ Spike asked himself.

They began to walk, framed as black silhouettes in the dying light.

"Bye bye!" the child called to the still twitching body of the Fyarl demon, waving over her shoulder and laughing delightedly.

Spike always like a girl with a sense of humor.

**A/N:** Hello, long chapter! So yes, sorry for the long upload period, my adoring and unquestioning fans. I hope you all enjoyed my first f'real fight scene ever. I found the result amusing if EXTREMELY annoying to write the logistics.

Don't worry, there WILL be some Spuffy action Real Soon Now Folks. Hm. I'm trying to think of something intellectual and thought provoking to say in these Author Notes but I can't. Oh well, all youse guys care about is NEXT CHAPPIE PLZ so I'll get on that. Enjoy!


	4. The Vampire's Vigil

_You will have a marvelous journey. And, young as you are, what matter if it costs you some pain – or even a little blood?... _

_F. W. Murnau, "Nosferatu" _

The wrought iron gates of the graveyard had been flung aside and crumpled, like two giant paper clips. Any sense of sanctity was gone. Tombstones were cracked and graffitied, loose soil before them left disturbed; even the marble angel that guarded the cemetery with its two wings snapped off at the base, seemed corrupted, malevolent.

Spike paused gingerly at the threshold of the plot and sniffed the air. The child, still clinging faithfully to his hand, looked up and quickly mimicked his actions, snorting so exuberantly she nearly fell over backward.

"Get a whiff of anything?" Spike asked, grinning.

She shook her head seriously.

"Me neither. Still, we should keep a low - "

With one of her patented shrieks, she slipped her hand from his and skipped over the fallen gates, darting across the grass and keeping a running commentary in some nonsensical language of her own. Occasionally she would drop to the ground to peer at some invisible treasure, then spring up again to dance on the graves, like a demented Superball. It gave Spike a headache just to watch her.

"Mind yourself," he called, knowing full well she could disappear in an instant if she wanted to and he would never see her again.

She just laughed, and continued to noisily dodge and elude the unseen dangers that filled her fantasy world.

Keeping the dancing figure in the corner of his eye, Spike turned to the mausoleum that dominated the ruined cemetery.

It was intact – the heavy wood door hung straight on its hinges, the glass over the barred windows remained unshattered. In fact, his crypt was so pristine as to be conspicuous. Obviously no other demons had taken up residence in his former dwelling.

Spike couldn't help but feel vaguely offended. Alright, so it was a bit of a dump, but its not as though your regular Vlad Vamp was exactly picky about his home comforts. _Come on,_ he thought, _I even had cable!_

Through force of habit, he banged the rain-warped wood of the door on the exact spot that unhinged the lock and made it swing backward hastily. Spike thought he caught a trace of a familiar scent waft out of the open door, but it was gone before he could recognize it.

"What is it?"

Spike hadn't noticed the girl materialize somewhere by his right knee, but there she was, gaping at the darkness.

"It's a crypt," he replied tersely.

"Woooooah," she breathed, almost quivering with potential energy.

Spike couldn't help feeling pleased.

"'S not a country club, but yeah, not half bad for watching a bit a' daytime telly with a nice warm pint of bluuhh…"

He faltered.

"Fruit juice."

He glanced down anxiously to see if she had noticed his slip, but she was gone again, vaporized into invisible atoms that disappeared into the looming maw. An echo-y giggle floated out through the open door.

By the time Spike had found the lamp and flicked the switch, Princess had already clambered into the ancient armchair that constituted the only furniture in the dusky room, besides the TV set. She sat far back in the seat, sunken so far down he could barely see her head. Her feet didn't even reach the edge,

Spike didn't think to find it odd that she had navigated so well in the murky light. Maybe all kids could see in the dark, how would he know?

Somehow she had acquired his old TV control and was demonstrating handy channel surfing abilities, clutching the clicker with both hands and deliberately pressing the channel 'up' button with her thumbs.

Bypassing a Japanese cooking show and some colorful dancing elves with equal distaste, she hesitated on a something grainy and monochromatic, with an orchestra that was obviously compensating for the lack of dialogue.

"Are you still hungry?" he asked, breaking her intense silence.

"Shhhh!" she ordered, and scooched to the edge of the chair.

_It's a silent film!_ he protested, but dared not say it out loud.

Spike looked about. The old crypt looked much in the way of exactly the same. Same leaky refrigerator, same sickly vines clinging to the walls, same crumbling sarcophagus with the same musty old bones inside. Bring on the warm and gooey feelings of nostalgia.

But, shouldn't there be more cobwebs? And he was sure that there had once been a well-cultivated layer of dust clinging to every surface. It was as though someone had been… _tidying up_.

That was bizarre. He didn't know anyone who liked to break into people's homes and tidy.

He opened the refrigerator door and found it was empty, save for an unopened tube of pizza-flavored crisps. Clem must have been around. Also explained the red smears on the arms of the chair Spike had assumed were bloodstains.

_Never assume blood, _he chided himself, and not for the first time._ You're only setting yourself up for disappointment. _

He offered the tube to the girl, who had scooted her way off the chair and onto the floor, inching closer and closer to the television screen. She took the crisps without tearing her eyes away from the scene.

"Girl sure likes her pictures," Spike muttered. She had no reaction.

He was suddenly achingly tired. He collapsed onto the chair, which almost did the same to him, it's springs wailing and groaning. He turned his attention to the TV.

With a relieved smile, Spike started to feel the numbing effects of television, like a bucket of ice water thrown directly onto his brain. Late night telly had the same appeal as drinking himself into a stupor would have, but was much more kid-friendly.

On the set a 2-inch tall sailor, dashing in a midgety sort of way, was backing away in horror from something in what looked like the brig of a ship.

A pale, demoniac figure rose stiff-armed from a splintered coffin, like a rake that had just been trodden on. That existential feeling, the one whose name you can only say in French, swept over Spike. It wasn't recognition from a real-life event – vampires were strong, but none could perform the amazing feats of muscle control that would be necessary to rise from a prone position like that. Plus, no self respecting vamp would wear that much mascara, and what was with the two beaver-like buck fangs?

No, the recognition was of the film itself. Spike had seen it before. Where? Why was the sight of that ridiculous parody of a vampire making his stomach contort?

The creature – it seemed almost insulting to call it a vampire, and yet – seemed to give the little girl a bit of a turn as well. Grimacing in delighted horror, she scooted slowly backwards away from the screen as the beast advanced upon the hapless hero.

With a small thud, she collided with the front of the armchair. The child looked directly up at Spike, her head inches away from his leg, and Spike looked back with equal resolve. She turned back to the sailor, who had managed to throw himself off the ship in a paroxysm of horror.

They watched in silent companionship.

As the pseudo-vamp stood, almost noble in profile on the helm of the ship, memory came flooding back to the unhappily authentic vampire sitting in his chair.

_Nosferatu_, the film was called. Berlin, 1922. Fantastic place and time to be for a young vampire. The air had been so thick with malice and resentment he could have drank it. Dru had wanted to see it – she adored the moving pictures, and this one was about _vampires_, about _us_!

It was all wrong of course. Worse than that book, the one by that Pram Stroker fella. It's hard to appreciate a film cinematically when it is amusingly insulting to your species.

He seemed to recall a big fuss at the time though, over the film. People running screaming out of the theater, women swooning all over the place (then getting back up, discouraged, when no one paid them any notice), the lamentations of the tiny, tiny babies.

Spike frowned. In retrospect, that may have been caused by Drusilla getting bored and noisily attacking that old geezer in the first row.

As he sat there, watching the ageless flicker of the screen, he became more and more entranced. He watched as the pretty young woman flung open her windows, giving entry to the evil Count; as he mounted the staircase, long fingernails stretching like shears on the shadowy wall; as the girl backed slowly towards the bed, her face a mixture of unbridled horror and fascination and lust.

So enthralled was Spike that he barely registered the slight pressure on the outside of his leg as the child's head flopped against him in sleep. He had laughed the first time he saw this. He couldn't remember why or how.

Finally, the crowing of the black-and-white rooster announced the dawn, and the trapped vampire froze in a twisted, agonized stance as the morning light touched his skin and faded him to nothing. The girl lay on the bed, dead as a stone.

Spike felt feverish and cold. The parallels had not escaped him.

The girl made a sound like a dove in her sleep, and Spike came back. Right, she needed somewhere to kip for the night. Leaning her carefully against the chair, Spike got up and surveyed the crypt. Nothing remotely bed-like up here. Downstairs, it would have to be. He didn't feel liked sleeping anyway.

He considered the problem of moving her. As waking her up would be far too unsettling for both parties, there would have to be some lifting involved.

_Ok, just, pick her up,_ Spike coached himself. _Like a sack of potatoes._

Her head fit strangely well on his shoulder. Her arms reached sleepily around and clasped behind his neck. Spike's throat felt odd, like he'd swallowed a lump of cotton wool.

He descended the stairs, carrying the child in a distinctly non sack-like way.

A few hundred feet away, a dark form slumped against a tree, buried its head in its hands, then slapped itself hard on the face.

_If you lose it now, that's it._

I owe it to her. Be Zen.

Moonlight illuminated the figure as she sprang out from under the tree and began a worn-out jog. Light hair, sticky and stiff with salt water. Tracksuit pants gritty with silt and worse, white tank top with a broken strap hastily tied back together.

Her green eyes were wide with fear and dull with despair, the look of one who has lost something precious and knows it is entirely her fault.

Spike stood, blank. The little one was curled up in a ball on the dark green couch he had filched from the Summers' basement many years ago. Pillow under her fluffy auburn hair, and a natty but warm tartan blanket on top. The very picture of serenity. So why did his stomach feel like a washing machine set to spin cycle?

He mentally deconstructed the child before him, agonizing over every detail, pouring over every last fingernail. Buffy's nose, Buffy's eyes, Buffy's delicate frame, Buffy's toes, like perfect petals.

Spike felt a wave of something ineffable lapping at the shores of his consciousness, desperate to flood.

He needed… he needed a smoke.

As he stepped outside, he saw that the moon had risen. It looked the same, bright and pearly, casting a blanching light over everything.

Leaning against the tree, Spike retrieved a cigarette and his Zippo lighter from his pocket. His fingers had darted away from the folded up photograph as though burned. With a shaking arm, he lifted the lighter to his mouth and tried to ignite the fag. It kept flickering out. His fingers felt stupid and weak.

"Damn!" he muttered, and dropped both lighter and cigarette on the silvery grass.

His mind kept going back to one thing, and with that fatal sense of inevitability, he felt his hand return to his pocket, to the Polaroid hidden deep inside. He didn't want to look at the thing – why should he? It didn't exactly give him warm, fuzzy feelings, and yet –

And yet he had already taken the photo out, was already unfolding it along familiar creases so worn they formed fault lines across her midsection.

She smiled at him, the kind of smile she rarely gave in real life, especially to Spike. Full of simple pleasure, a freeze-frame of a brief moment when Buffy was just a young girl again, untroubled, unafraid.

Picked off of the refrigerator at Buffy's house long ago, Spike had already memorized every detail of the picture. In fact, he had no need to even look at it anymore – all he had to do was close his eyes and there she was, forever smiling in his dreams.

A moan choked its way up Spike's throat, and then hot tears were condensing in the corners of his eyes. He slid down the wall, sobs wracking his body as inexorable waves of grief rolled over him.

A loud thud and a muffled expletive reached his ears. He sniffed, swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, and stood up warily. He could hear the breathing now – labored and shallow and _human_.

Something lived in this godless, lightless town. The wind changed, blowing filaments of cloud across the moon and a heady scent in Spike's direction, which went directly to his chest and tightened on his ribs like shackles.

_Buffy,_ he thought, or said, or imagined saying. He was mad, he knew, he had to be wrong. But he still he ran.

**A/N:** Hey folks! Hooray for emotional!Spike. Come on, its not Spuffy if Spike doesn't cry like a little girl at least once. In fact, he's probably gonna cry more than the little girl mentioned in this fic.

Anyway, hope you liked this chapter cuz it will be the last for a while. Finals and AP's blow. But yeah, a couple of you will by now have noticed some of my sources of inspiration (The Scarlet Letter, for one).

So yes, next chapter mucho backstory, but hopefully it won't be too dull. Try not to weep to much between now and then… deviousauthorsnicker


	5. Another View of Buffy

**A/N: **Some people may be confused as to the nature of this AU. Spike leaves at the end of Season 6, and doesn't come back till three years later, so basically everything from Season 7 of Buffy onward (including Season 5 of Angel) never happened. So cast it from your minds. :)

**Also:** The forward slashes ( / ) indicated Buffy's crazy drug-induced (JK… ) flashbacks. I told you there would be exposition!

_In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it._

-Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter"

21 hours earlier….

The impact jolted her awake, so sudden she forgot she had ever been unconscious. For an age all was confusion, bubbles, foul-tasting water in her mouth, nose, eyes. She thrashed for air, mistaking up for down, losing track of every whisper of a logical thought. Her lungs ached. The murky, stinging water around her began to dim and her dying brain threw forward random memories in a last desperate act of consciousness.

/ In the garden, springtime, the sun spinning embers on her golden hair, the familiar smell of suburban mildness drifting through the air. A girl with a fluffy auburn halo is twirling slowly in the grass, stopping to pluck new dandelions that sprout like – well, like weeds in the scruffy lawn /

_Crushing, dark, bubbles, air, air AIR - _

/ Crouching intently in the grass she lines the dandelion heads in a circle around her mother, the decapitated flowers enclosing her like a ring of tiny yellow suns. The mother reaches out, craving contact with her child, with just a lock of her - /

_Up, up with light and direction and AIR._

/ The girl is gone, so quickly vanished she expects to see a faint outline of her body where it was a moment ago, like the roadrunner in the cartoon. She reaches but can't quite - /

_Can't quite – _

With an almighty gasp, Buffy broke through the surface and inhaled what felt like the entire Pacific Ocean and about an eighth of a lungful of air. Gagging on the briny water, she coughed and floundered wildly, feeling as helpless as a Baywatch riptide victim. A cursory glance about her surroundings, however, revealed no chiseled Hasselhoff-esque coastguard waterskiing in her direction. Just a faint suggestion of a landform in the distance and a whole lotta sky.

"Oh, balls," she lamented, and promptly swallowed a heaping mouthful of water from California's biggest toilet.

iii

"Ok. Ok," Buffy said out loud.

"Ok."

The slayer dog-paddled in place, sorting out this alarming situationin her mind. Firstly, where was she? Answer: the ocean.

Obviously.

Next order of business: what's with this ocean thing? Her brain threw forth likely circumstances. She had been… at the beach! The whole gang had been there - Xander and Giles, tossing around a Frisbee; Willow, buried up to her ears in sand; and… and Angel! He had been barbecuing up a batch of his famous Angelburgers, his "Kiss the Chef" apron spotted with ketchup and grease. He had turned and smiled at her.

"Don't forget that SPF 45, honey! Your back is looking a little pink!"

Buffy must have gotten into the ocean too soon after stuffing herself with burgers. And look what happened. She had just… floated away, unable to paddle her hugely distended stomach back to shore. Her mother had always told her to wait – to wait…

With a groan, Buffy shook herself vigorously, flinging loose strands of wet hair into her eyes. She wasn't thinking clearly. The impact must have loosened some cogs in her head and part of her was still hallucinating.

_The impact_.

Sudden clarity. He'd found them, finally, although how it was hard to say. The house was layered with so many protective spells and hexes you could almost see the glow from space. His harbingers had stormed the house, swinging in through windows and busting down the door like an evil SWAT team.

They weren't ready. Hell, they weren't even close to ready. Balthazar had always been one step ahead of them, ever since – she closed her eyes, the memory obviously causing her pain – _Dawn_ had gotten far too chatty with the "nice robey guy" who offered to walk her home from school one day.

"Didn't you think the _horns_ were a giveaway?" Buffy had asked her, in exasperation.

"He was obviously self-conscious about them!" Dawn had argued, "I didn't like to bring it up!"

Buffy had fought them off, of course, but they had just kept pouring in, like coins from a jackpot slot machine win. She had the axe Willow had charmed for her, and was kicking harbinger ass, but it wasn't enough. They had closed in, till she could see only the darkness of their hoods and then nothing at all.

And then there was a big blank spot in her recollections, then she was in the ocean. The harbingers must have taken her out here and dropped her off. That was puzzling. Of all the ways to kill a slayer, drowning wasn't exactly –

Oh wait.

She could see where they were coming from.

Aziza, meanwhile, had done exactly what she was told, for once, and ran to hide in the safehouse in the garden. That child would be the death of her, but her sense of self-preservation was evidently –

With sudden, choking terror, Buffy tried to calculate how long she had been out. Her watch was drowned, and although she peered at the position of the moon for at least a minute, she was no girl scout. It could have been less than an hour – or a week and a half since Balthazar's disciples had swarmed her house.

A sudden booming memory, a public service announcement from the 80's –

"_It's 10 o'clock. Do YOU know where your children are?"_

sounded in her head, the somber, accusatory tone driving her mad with fear. She felt weights tied to her feet and wrists, dragging her inexorably into the endless murky depths. Her little girl was alone, somewhere, brave and small and afraid and missing her mother. Her mother had left her alone.

Buffy was paralyzed, but something deep and important called her name and kicked her ass and told her to get moving. People depend on you, there are _always_ people depending on you, there's no time to go popsicle-brained in the middle of an ocean.

So she swam, counting the confident strokes of her arms, watching them carefully because she couldn't stand to look at the water. She was alone again. Her memories accompanied her, kept her sane. Also, they stopped her from thinking of sharks.

/ Buffy stared at the object in her hand, the sight encountering some barrier in her brain that refused to acknowledge its existence. It just wasn't possible. It was wrong. Slayer hormones were different – she was always confounding doctors and conventional medicine, why should this be any different? And yet she knew, she knew in the way only she could know, that it was right. She had felt it, something alien stirring, something awakening inside her that was new and strange.

Putting one hand on her stomach, she dropped the stick into the wastebasket and slumped onto the side of the bathtub. She felt nothing – no joy, apprehension, terror. Only the dull knowledge that her life had once again been jerked around in another direction by some complex power that she had no control of.

She looked at her haggard reflection in the mirror. Already motherhood did not become her. /

Slowly the hours passed and the moon fell to the earth, the cool, otherworldly light extinguishing itself as it touched the ocean on the horizon. Buffy, buoyed as she was by her Olympic muscles, was nevertheless feeling the fog of exhaustion building up inside. She used only one arm at a time now, clutching her midsection with the other to reserve energy.

Staring at the far-off lights constantly was depressing, so she glanced up to see her progress after what she felt to be suitably long intervals. She never seemed to get any closer.

Memories kept her swimming.

/ Giles was the first to know. She didn't think why at first – why not Willow, her best friend and eternal confidant, or Dawnie, who was going to be an _aunt_ for God's sakes? Giles seemed the logical choice, and it was only later she realized that it was because she had thought of this unexpected development as exactly that. A _development_. Just another daily Slayer conundrum, another Big Bad to rally the forces against. Just another Apocalypse.

He was gobsmacked, but in that familiar stuttering _Giles_ way that was almost a comfort. Suddenly there were books everywhere and he was flipping through an encyclopedia the size of a coffee table and muttering about cross-referencing. And Buffy could pretend again, just for a little while. Giles would know.

iii

"What do you mean, nothing?" she shouted, pacing down the room, "I can't be the only one! Surely, surely this has happened before!"

Giles sighed and plucked fretfully at his spectacles.

"Buffy, this is, this is completely unprecedented!" He laughed humorlessly. "I-I don't know if you ever realized this, but a Slayer having any sort of… unconfrontational… relationship with a – w-well, it's not exactly customary!"

"Sure, ride me about that now!" she snapped.

Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his temples.

"I'm not… _riding_ you about anything! It's… I just can't tell you anything, Buffy. We're in uncharted waters now, I'm afraid."

Buffy exhaled, and sat down heavily on a chair next to Giles, mimicking his temple-rubbing unconsciously.

"You said you knew how," she said, after a pause. It wasn't a question.

"Er, yes, " Giles said, glad to be useful again. "It says here… erm, Benedict claims… Volume 4, actually, one of the most ancient diaries…"

Buffy crossed her arms.

"Right," he gathered his thoughts, making sure to phrase the next bit carefully. "A slayer's calling is considered nearly… sacrosanct, as it were."

He paused. "To… sully this calling is… it's close to blasphemy, Buffy."

Buffy twitched dangerously.

"In the eyes of the council." He added quickly.

"So…" she began slowly, anger bubbling like hot tar on an L.A. beach, "this baby is, is like _punishment_ for my _sin_?"

"Well," Giles said succinctly.

"Great," she said, springing up again and beginning her anxious pacing. "When can I expect the locusts?"

Giles fingered his lenses.

"Will you _stop_ fidgeting with those?" she spat, whipping around angrily.

Giles looked hurt.

She sighed, walking back over to the chair and sitting down again.

"God, I'm sorry. This isn't your fault. Hell," she shook her head, "it's my fault. Of course I know that."

"Now," Giles said, sitting up, "you couldn't have known – "

"It's just…" she smiled bitterly. "If they're gonna go all Puritan on my ass, tell them I'd really prefer the scarlet letter."

Giles put his hand on her arm.

"Buffy… please… be careful."

They looked at one another, and Buffy almost asked and Giles almost replied. They were thinking the same question and she didn't want to know the answer.

_Does my baby have a soul?_ /

The sun rose. Buffy imagined its laser-like beams shooting down and dusting hundreds of vampires caught in inopportune places around the world. Across time, what had killed more, the Slayer or a billion-year old oblivious star?

The sea heaved. The top layer of water grew hot, almost unbearably, and a great stench rose up from the decaying seaweed and worse that clogged the dank water around Southern California.

Memories lifted the heat.

/ She told them. It's not like she could have kept blaming her newly rotund shape on a fondness for Hostess cupcakes. And even Xander, otherwise known as Señor Perpetually Unaware, began to notice the mood swings.

Their reactions were variable. Dawn squealed indecorously and Buffy could almost see her brain planning interior design for a nautical-themed nursery. Willow's eyes got large and she started to ask about 12 different questions at once, only to scrap them all and just sort of gape. Xander was different. His eyes got hard, and he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Buffy, if whoever did this to you is planning on… _shirking_ certain fatherly duties… I will not only hunt him down and rip him _several_ new ones, I will personally remove the possibility of any future contribution of his to the gene pool."

He paused, seeing her detached stare.

"I'll cut his balls off, Buff," he explained.

Buffy sort of winced and smiled at the same time.

"Thanks for the Overprotective Big Brother talk Xand, but there's no need for any… ripping of new ones."

She looked out the window, seeming to suddenly become very interested in Mrs. McReady watering her azaleas next door.

"He doesn't know and I don't plan on informing him," she said quietly.

"This isn't his deal." /

She only felt the shark brush her leg – she couldn't see it because her eyes had long crusted over with salt and dehydration. The sandpaper feel was unmistakable, though, as it rubbed up against her like a cat craving attention. She flipped to her back and floundered in what she realized was probably a very appetizing manner. She stopped – not because of a rational decision to conserve energy but because she was literally too exhausted to move.

Shark attack. Hadn't she heard somewhere it was the most peaceful way to die?

_No,_ she thought, dejected, _definitely no._

/ A dozen times she had snuck close to his door and listened before she was convinced. A million times she had glanced by his favorite lurking tree, surveyed the Bronze for a glimpse of a radioactively blonde head, thought she heard someone whispering -

But the day she finally accepted that Spike was gone came one night in a back alley. An amateur gang of vamps had teamed up in the name of killing Buffy. "The Slayer Slayers", they called themselves. She knew this because it was in their Team Chant. Yes, they had a chant. So Buffy wasn't exactly shaking with fear.

There was a fight. Buffy hadn't realized that she somehow still expected him to show up at every struggle. Usually he appeared right as she was fixing to stake the last vampire, with some spectacular backflip-right hook combination that would knock the deviant into next year and Buffy off her groove.

She hadn't realized it until, of course, she was pressed halfway up a wall by a Slayer Slayer with a hankerin' for some Chosen One tasty goodness. Just like mama used to make.

It was then, as she wriggled like a hooked trout in the vamp's grasp, that she knew he would be there, that this undead unsavory would get that oh-so-satisfying look of surprise on his twisted features and poof into nothing. And there he'd be on the other side, smirk ever present and hand extended to help her to her feet.

Then the idiot bit her, and just like that she knew Spike was gone. He'd have to be flying across dimensions if he didn't show up when Buffy was in trouble.

A tear hi-tailed it unnoticed down her cheek, and she threw the demon to the floor. /

The shark had been gone for a while. Buffy just floated, focusing on drawing in breath and trying to feel her legs. The knowledge that she was going to die surrounded her. Who would take care of Aziza when she was gone? Who was with her now?

With a half-hearted flutter, her heart acknowledged the reappearance of her fanged friend, the shark. He slid under her limp, outstretched arm and waited patiently.

Buffy stroked the fish distractedly. She had an epiphany.

Sharks were misunderstood creatures. Misunderstood and misrepresented. People needed to realize that sharks were actually the most caring and gentle animals in the entire freaking Kingdom.

Willie, for that was his name, agreed.

_Dolphins get all the publicity, _said Willie the shark.

Buffy nodded and looped her other arm around Willie's broad back.

"I can't find her," she croaked, her voice dry and painful.

"She's all alone and I can't find her."

Willie nuzzled her midriff.

_She'll never be alone, love, don't worry about that._

"But who will take care of her?" she whispered, leaning her cheek against his rough skin.

_Who will take care of you?_

I... she began to say or maybe think, but she was so tired.

_/ More of a _demon_ than a child._

_What a peculiar thing she is._

_Almost inhuman._

She bore it, never betraying the doubts that were compounded by the idle chatter of her neighbors, the sitters, the director of the Pre-K that politely declined to accept Aziza Summers into her program.

Aziza, who didn't play well with others, little Zee, who rarely cried but knew exactly how to hurt her mother, her little darling who was pain and joy, love and fear, who knew nothing but a world filled with enemies made to strike down and who laughed when others wept.

Buffy loved her more than she knew a person could love anything, but she was always afraid for her. She wasn't a demon, but neither was she wholly human. She was tainted, constantly on the brink - now a little girl playing with a doll, making colorful Play-Doh necklaces for her mama, now an ethereal being made of light and fire, who knew no more of love and other earthly matters than does a distant burning star. /

Buffy awoke to the sensation of someone tugging on a strand of her hair. She growled and felt around for a pillow to whack Dawn, who was undoubtedly the culprit, over the head.

With a screech, the seagull hopped down from its perch on her head and inspected her lopsidedly from a distance.

Her left hand was clutching something. With difficulty, Buffy opened an eye and was instantly blinded by the unhealthy orange light of the setting sun.

_The setting sun._

Buffy gasped, then coughed as she inhaled the oil-streaked sand of the beach. She had washed ashore, and now it was nearly night.

She had been gone for almost an entire day. Almost 24 hours.

As her eye adjusted (the other was pressed against the ground, and her head felt no compulsion to move yet), she examined her fingers. They were entwined with a rough burlap sack containing, according to the faded lettering, "limones frescos." Lemons.

She must have grabbed hold of the floating sack and let it carry her to shore. A vague memory of a dream – something about a shark – fluttered in the back of her brain but evaded capture.

With a groan, Buffy lifted her head and slowly the rest of her followed. She stood, dusting herself of sand, and felt a strange sense of gratitude for the lemons that saved her life. Bitterness quickly followed.

"Saved by citrus," Buffy muttered, surveying her surroundings. Some girls get bronzed beach hunks on jet skis. Not Buffy. Oh no. Buffy gets fruit.

She appeared to be in the vicinity of the Sunnydale docks. She could see them.

They were on fire.

Subduing the quiet attack of panic that was brewing in her stomach, Buffy set off at a stumbling jog that slowly settled into a rhythmic sort of hobble. Her muscles were screaming painfully, but she kept running. It was miles to home and time was short.

_Time_, Buffy thought_, is gone._

iii

The moon rose again, hovering just ahead of Buffy in her race home to her daughter. Things she hadn't noticed in the water began to claim her attention. Like the lump on the back of her head the size of a kumquat. Or the rib that had definitely been painfully rearranged sometime after she lost consciousness. Or the long, bloody scratch that raced down the side of her leg.

Everything hurt. Her ears hurt. Her freaking _blood_ hurt.

She spent an age combing her deserted street, flipping over refrigerators and calling "Aziza!" until her voice gave out. She checked the playground, peering into the darkness of the covered slide and under the see-saw for signs of life.

Third on her list, oddly enough, was the busiest graveyard in Southern California.

Buffy could stand apart from herself and view the situation from a distance for short bursts of time. She knew she had about an hour before she was overcome with horror and despair, at which point she would be useless.

That's why, when she saw Spike crying outside his crypt, her thoughts were strangely clear. None of this "Oh-I'm-so-conflicted" crap – am I glad, am I horrified, he tried to rape me, he went to get a soul – none of it even entered her head.

Spike, as a vampire, had a nose a bloodhound would be proud of. If anyone could sniff out an errant toddler in record time, it was him. Buffy needed him, and she would use him just like she'd used him all those years before. He was a tool.

Unfortunately, her planned cool approach went awry as she lost her balance (she _knew_ she had some inner ear thing coming) and tumbled off the crumbling wall she had climbed upon to better view her surroundings. With a sickening _crack_ like a gunshot, that rearranged rib took the final plunge, and by the feel of it, took a couple of his rib-friends with him.  
Stars exploded in front of her, and she cursed mindlessly for a minute while focusing on the line of ants walking in front of her nose to keep her mind alive and conscious.

A familiar boot crunched into Buffy's ground-level view. For a second nothing happened. Then a pair of hands were on her shoulders, lifting her effortlessly from the dirt and balancing her carefully on her tottering feet.

"Buffy," Spike said, afraid to catch her eye, his voice so low and full of emotion Buffy nearly lost it.

_Be far away Buffy. Tiny dot on the horizon Buffy, _she reminded herself.

_Perspective Buffy._

"Listen," she said, but before she could even begin to phrase the next part – _he had __**no**__idea_ – a pattering sound like rain falling on dry leaves reached her ears.

A dirty little urchin appeared behind Spike's knees, her distinctive dark strawberry blonde head standing up in a wild mane around her head.

Spike looked at the child, and she looked at him, then they both looked at Buffy, and their faces – Oh God, she was his in so many ways, she'd forgotten how much they looked -

After a pause in which the child scrutinized the equally rough looking woman before her, she screamed,

"MAMA!!!"

and ran for her. A strange lightness of head was affecting Buffy - as though something heavy had suddenly been removed from it, maybe one of those old-fashioned deep-sea diving helmets with the cute little windows.

A sigh escaped her –

Then the ground rushed up again – she was becoming sadly familiar with it – and Buffy lost her consciousness.

_This is SO getting old,_ she managed, before thought was extinguished.

**A/N: **Wow that would be, what, the third time Buffy's fainted in this chapter? Don't worry, she's conscious a lot more often in the next chap. Also, look out for proper!Spuffiness, not just this vague implication crap. XD

**P.S: **How did Buffy know Spike was looking for a soul, you ask. Well, in my world, Spike's been out there looking for quite some time, and I think word would have eventually reached Buffy of his whereabouts and…whyabouts. Just… just accept it.

**P.P.S: **Now I'm not normally a review whore, but… over a thousand views and only 13 reviews??? That is sad to the extreme. Make a poor author happy, leave a thought. :)


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